Grit Lab Report

Hi Laura,

Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!

We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.

We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.

Important note!

Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.

If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.

Okay, let’s get started!

The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.

We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.

Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.

The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.

Regarding passion you picked Stage 2: I have 2 or 3 emerging interests but am unsure how to figure out which one to pursue .

Regarding perseverance you picked .

As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.

Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.

In week 2, we looked at your interests.

Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.

Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.

Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.

In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.

You said your top three values were achievement, security, and stimulation.

You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.

When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was conscientiousness.

You said your top three talents were analytic, verbal, and kinesthetic.

We then talked about goal hierarchies.

You said you had a pretty good idea about your top-level goal.

We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.

A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to heal .

Here is how self-concordant that goal was:

Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.

It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!

Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.

We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:

Work Smart

In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.

You WOOPed!

For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said Sleep more than 7 hrs .

For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said Better energy levels .

For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said Procrastination .

For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: When it is 10:30pm, I will go to bed .

Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.

And here’s how much you learned

These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.

The important thing is that you learn something along the way!

In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.

You shared you’ve done daily practice in Sports .

We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.

In week 8, we discussed feedback.

Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!

You said you felt Attacked when receiving critical feedback, and Attacked when receiving positive feedback.

We then turned to learning about stress.

In week 9, you reported feeling a lot of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being applications .

We also talked about adversity and failure.

Although related, adversity and failure are different:

Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.

However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…

Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.

And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.

We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.

Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.

You describe the habit you chose as Sports .

Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.

Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?

So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.

In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.

Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.

Here’s how you described them:

You also wrote a gratitude letter to .

In one word, you said it made you feel Happy .

One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.

… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.

Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.

Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?

Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.

Success is a journey
You have to sample a lot
People's expectations of you become yours
Harmony is aerodynamic
Glue yourself to the sky but see the obstacles
Flow is like riding the wave
The ego is the biggest threat to feedback
Fail better
The person who has to decide their days work every morning suffers
Need a mental picture
If not now, when

In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.

Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:

Talia Sacks
I am consistently amazed by the passion and dedication you bring to our team. Your commitment to your role as a runner on the college sports team is truly commendable, and witnessing your unwavering dedication to both academics and athletics is inspiring. The positive impact of your work ethic on our team dynamic is immeasurable, and your ability to balance such demanding commitments while maintaining a genuine and approachable demeanor is a testament to your exceptional character. In addition to your impressive contributions as a teammate, your Discovery project on making dumplings showcased your creativity and ability to merge different interests seamlessly. Your scientific approach to crafting dumplings was not only informative but also engaging, providing a fresh and innovative take on a traditional culinary practice. Your presentation skills were equally impressive, as you communicated complex concepts with clarity and enthusiasm. Your project highlighted the breadth of your talents and your skills in the kitchen!
Yuka Nakada
Laura is the most hard-working person I have ever met. Being part of MLS studying biochemistry and biophysics, getting her Master’s simultaneously, and training every day as an athlete, she inspired me with her energy every week during our team conversations. Her dedication to work at the research lab is very impressive. I loved hearing about her reflections and experiences throughout this semester, and I am very happy we got to meet each other through Grit Lab! With her perseverance and passion, I am 100% sure she will be successful in the Ph.D. program. Her discovery project on dumplings was very interesting, and I was impressed by her determination and results even with such a busy schedule. I enjoyed hearing about her goals and seeing the pictures of the dumplings she made. Laura inspired me to start cooking, and I hope to try some of the recipes she listed in her presentation. Laura, thank you so much for everything this semester!

We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.

Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?

Drumroll please…

Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.

In any case, grit is not built in a day…

…remember that progress is never smooth…

…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.

With grit and gratitude,

Angela and the Grit Lab team.